


Etro's Sorrow

by Phos



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Copious Depictions of War-time, Implied Mpreg, M/M, Old Gods, Playing Fast and Loose with XIII's Lore, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sexual Coercion, The Astrals Being Dicks, but only sometimes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:15:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24121204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phos/pseuds/Phos
Summary: Having slaughtered His mother and devoured her corpse, the cruel god prince, Bhunivelze, captured her most loyal servant and goddess of death, Etro, and laid with her. From Their union came the first monsters, and from that placental afterbirth came the Starscourge that wrought humanity. The six Astrals, foreseeing the mortal realm’s destruction, devised crystal prisons that would hold Bhunivelze and His two servants, Hallowed Pulse and Fell Lindzei, in eternal slumber until the eventual collapse of the universe [...]Prompto, once worshipped as a god, awakens from a millennia-long slumber to find that all of Eos now rests tenuously on the line between peace and a war that would soon consume it. But he's not the only one of the old gods that has returned, and they desire to see the cruel god king once more on the throne at the cost of the planet's survival.
Relationships: Prompto Argentum/Noctis Lucis Caelum
Comments: 15
Kudos: 76





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is like if you went several years without exercising then randomly decided, hey, time to run that 5k! and started dry-heaving by the end of the first half mile. It's all good, though.
> 
> Hope I made it obvious enough who Bhunivelze is... =)

The painting sat upon a metal dais nested in copper-plated leaves. At the feet of the goddess, Etro, someone had laid an orchid bloom. Its petals were perfect and white as bleached bone.

It was a solemn interpretation, but one not out of place against the dark backdrop of Insomnia through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The artist depicted the goddess in seeping, muted oil colors; shades of blue and sepia grey as soft as the wrappings of cloth which cocooned her pale body. She slept, peaceful, and thus felt nothing of the thorns and sharpened staves that appeared to entomb her.

_“Come, pity poor Etro, she was left all alone.”_

Prompto’s spine stiffened at the words, and his fingers, occupied in one hand with a flute of champagne, came dangerously close to snapping the delicate, crystal stem. He hated himself for allowing the reaction, but it was already too late to take back. Nothing he ever did escaped the chancellor’s notice.

When Ardyn stepped up behind him, the heat emanating off the chancellor’s body was like a physical brand upon his back. Prompto grit his teeth to stop himself from pushing the man away, from lashing out, biting at the nearest limb in reach— 

“It won’t be long now,” Ardyn mused, almost sing-song as he leant in close, but still did not quite touch. There was a smile in his voice, the conspiratorial twist of it just nigh of a smirk. “Are you enjoying the party?”

Prompto wore what Ardyn had picked out for him: a ridiculous tux made from the whitest silk, the cuffs of which he fiddled with constantly. He didn’t have to like the idea, but he fit in amongst the crowd with unprecedented ease.

Behind them stretched one of the Citadel’s highest floors, a grand but modern ballroom adorned with luxurious glass fixtures and black marble at every turn. A spiral staircase filled the center of the room, both above and below which loitered the city’s highest elite in fanciful, showy dress. Their voices were a low and rhythmic murmur as they laughed and simpered over the treaty soon to come. For Lucis, long at war with Niflheim, had arranged tonight’s party in celebration of the council which would gather within the hour.

Prompto despised them all. Niflheim had instigated the war nearly a decade ago, and in that time so many of Eos’ people had their lives taken from them. Those who gathered here tonight were untouched by such a cruel thing as grief; they whose wealth determined their survival, and whose desire for peace was born solely of its incredible economic promise.

Prompto wrinkled his nose in distaste. “I’m not like you,” he replied, quiet, uncertain if he was trying to convince Ardyn of this fact, or himself. “I don’t play with my food.”

He would give anything to turn back time, to be back in Tenebrae in the rooms he’d shared with Luna. For six years, Prompto had lived among mortals. It was strange, to think he had nearly forgotten he wasn’t one of them. But that was before Ardyn had learned that the Oracle was hiding him, and had come for him.

His return to Lucis had him feeling almost… out of body, thus far. Niflheim worshipped Hallowed Pulse, the Architect, and were a largely industrialized country grown on the backs of factories, rapidly advancing technology, and weaponry. For Tenebrae, their chosen deity was Fell Lindzei, the Protector of the Heavens, and as such its people held dreams of a civilization built in the sky.

As for Lucis, that honor belonged to none other than Etro.

"Her blood pouring forth, in Chaos to atone. Queen of nothing, goddess of death—so let her be known.” Ardyn’s tone was a touch mocking as he finished the nursery rhyme. Prompto chose that moment to down his champagne in one swallow. It was bitter and thick on his tongue as it slid down.

The painting of Etro was a centerpiece at the front windows. When he’d arrived here not by choice at Ardyn’s side, he had circled the edges of the room for some time before finding the bravery to approach it. In Tenebrae, the very idea of worshipping death was seen as a taboo. There was just something about the imagery that made him feel distinctly uneasy. More than that, however, he was curious to know how Lucis’ favored depiction of the goddess came to be of a woman trapped in eternal slumber.

Beside him, Ardyn studied the painting with his chin propped on one knuckle, idle as he rubbed at the scruff along his jaw. “While she is most certainly a beauty to behold,” he pronounced. “I believe the artist does great disservice to your eyes, little dove.”

Ardyn did not move to touch him then, but Prompto tensed nevertheless. Still, he felt the chancellor’s eyes on the side of his face, and it made his skin crawl. Prompto was already a plaything in Ardyn’s hands, his body was the only thing he felt he himself controlled. He wasn’t the only one tangled up in the chancellor’s puppet strings—Emperor Aldercapt, at least, remained foolishly unaware.

It frustrated Prompto as often as it struck him cold with fear. He had no power in this mortal body.

Of course, Ardyn was just as much a mortal now as he. The difference, however, was that while Prompto was attended to in secrecy by the previous Oracle, Lunafreya’s mother, Ardyn had used his snake’s tongue to mold Niflheim to his own whims and desires.

Chuckling lowly, Ardyn dipped forward in an exaggerated bow. He had the gall to bring his hat to his heart, and when he gazed up at Prompto coyly from beneath his dark, wine-colored hair, his pupils slitted almost as a viper’s might.

“You wound me, my dear. What would His Majesty think, were I to harm a hair on your pretty blonde head?”

“You’re a fool,” Prompto snarled. Here amongst the richest finery of mortals, he had never felt so small, so _helpless._ “Bhunivelze will kill you.”

They were attracting attention now, albeit covert and hidden behind finely gloved hands. Those in attendance knew the Chancellor of Niflheim at a glance; he wore a very distinguishable coat and scarf, after all. But the young man who had arrived for the peace council alongside Ardyn Izunia was a most curious peculiarity.

“Now, now,” Ardyn soothed. He replaced his hat upon his head, tipped it low. “That’s why I have you.”

He disappeared into the crowd, and Prompto, at once alone again beneath the painting of Etro, could not for all the world hold back the scraping sob that retched from his throat.

* * *

The oldest Tenebraen cosmogony text was believed to have survived the burning of the Library of Solheim an estimated two millennia past. Its subtitles had long worn from its cover due to the exposure to extreme heat and ash, though it eventually would find its way to the airy shelves of Lady Fleuret’s private study.

 _Having slaughtered His mother and devoured her corpse_ , it read, _the cruel god prince, Bhunivelze, captured her most loyal servant and goddess of death, Etro, and laid with her. From Their union came the first monsters, and from that placental afterbirth came the Starscourge that wrought humanity. The six Astrals, foreseeing the mortal realm’s destruction, devised crystal prisons that would hold Bhunivelze and His two servants, Hallowed Pulse and Fell Lindzei, in eternal slumber until the eventual collapse of the universe […] (Vol. XXVII, page 13, cont.)_

Prompto had spent more than one warm afternoon tucked into a chaise on the study’s balcony, drawing the pads of his fingers down the pages whose yellowed illustrations hadn’t yet disintegrated with time. It was unnervingly common in current media to portray Bhunivelze as a grim figure with emaciated hands and a shadowed face. Prompto recalled a young Lunafreya, seven at the time, divulging to him the film she was forbidden to see, that she had watched without her mother knowing anyway, and the consequent nightmares that kept her awake for a month. Bhunivelze, it appeared, enjoyed sulking beneath beds and eating children whole.

Luna had looked positively relieved when she crawled into Prompto’s lap and he showed her the image of Bhunivelze in Lady Fleuret’s musty old cosmogony text. In it, he was depicted in a manner more befitting a prince: a young man on the cusp of adulthood, wild unkempt black hair and a one-shouldered cape that fell in deep, violet folds over orchid-laden arms. 

“Are the flowers for a princess?” Luna had asked him then, and she’d reached forward to trace the orchids which spilt down to Bhunivelze’s feet.

Mouth tightening in denial of a frown, Prompto had pressed his cheek to the downy hair atop her head, and inhaled, catching the lingering scent of the cream and fresh bread they’d eaten for lunch. “Orchids,” he explained. “Bhunivelze created them to please his lover. They’re... temperamental. Difficult to care for. There aren’t many gardeners who find the blooms rewarding enough to try.”

Luna had sighed. “If a boy _made_ me a flower, I think I would marry him. Even if he was saying I’m difficult and hard to take care of, look how many blooms he’s carrying,” and she tapped her finger down the page, seeming to count them all. “He must have really _, really_ loved them. Does the book say? Oh _please,_ please read it to me, Prompto!”

Later, when Prompto entered the lush garden halls of the inner Citadel complex, he was stunned silent by the array of orchids which knitted the underside of arches and climbed the iron trellises that lined the stone path. It was the most beautifully curated collection he had ever encountered, their petals dyed metallic hues of purple and blue so very bright and shiny they might well have been synthetically bred. And, as he wove beneath the archways, the strangest sensation prickled at the back of his neck. He was imagining things, surely, for it was impossible that their faces were turning to follow him.

The last time that Prompto was in Lucis… he wrapped his arms around his chest, nails scrunching into tight fists in the fabric of his suit. Was it really six years ago? Gods, but it felt so much longer. The splendor of the gardens was nearly enough to forget himself, to soothe the anxiety festering like poison inside his stomach. There was a reason he was there in the Lucian King’s palace to begin with, and as the night wore on, that reason was rapidly approaching fruition. At that very moment, on one of the Citadel’s higher floors, Ardyn and Emperor Aldercapt were convening with the Council of Insomnia.

He would not soon forget, however, that he was not alone. Ravus was a ghostly presence a handful of feet behind him, and despite dogging Prompto’s every step around the gardens, the space between them was left purposefully wide so as not to be suffocating. Even during his brief stay in Niflheim following his capture, a permanent guard had orbited him. Unsurprising, that Ardyn so keenly distrusted his cooperation.

But they were in Lucis now, and the very notion that Ardyn saw fit to assign _Ravus_ as his constant attendant had bile rising in Prompto’s throat. For the last six years, Prompto had thought himself the only one of the old gods to emerge from stasis. How very wrong he learned he was, when Niflheim’s troops finally pushed far enough to overtake Tenebrae, and in had sauntered one _Ardyn Izunia._ Of course, the whole point of the war was Niflheim’s greed in obtaining the magical crystals belonging to both Tenebrae and Lucis. No one could have known that Niflheim’s crystal had shattered just a year prior, the god it held prison for millennia let loose once more upon Eos.

Pulse was exactly as Prompto remembered him: arrogant to a fault, and a sniveling fox that was loyal only as far as his own personal gain. It was no wonder the Emperor was susceptible to Ardyn’s manipulations. In days of old, Pulse had so enjoyed making mortals dance for him.

And in conquering Tenebrae and gaining access to the crystal housed in Lady Fleuret’s sunlit atrium, Ardyn had freed his partner, the second servant of Bhunivelze: Fell Lindzei.

The paths through the gardens branched in a manner akin to a maze. Unfamiliar with this area of the Citadel, Prompto allowed himself to be lead by the sound of gurgling water, a gentle hymn carried to him on the breeze which flowed through the arches. Despite it being night time in Insomnia, the natural light of the moon sunk through the stained glass windows and cast the space in a soft glow.

He found the fountain after roughly twenty minutes of wandering. A statue of Etro stood up to her knees in the clear water, her mane of hair tumbling seamlessly into a feathered cloak, accentuating her bare thighs and stomach. The fall of it upon her skin evoked something secretive rather than sensual. She held one finger to her lips, as though hushing an unseen audience, while in her other arm water streamed from a clay vase into the pool around her.

Though most of Insomnia held a clear preference for gothic architecture and marble, the fountain and Etro herself were constructed of a milky granite. The sculptor, Prompto assumed, a sour twist to his mouth, was clearly devout.

It felt like a life-time ago since he last itched to have his camera in hand. But that was before, when he was treated the same as anyone else and only Lady Fleuret knew of his true nature. He and Luna had devised the most carefully laid plans to evade their tutors—mathematics and philosophy were awfully droll, after all—and they’d often escaped down to the markets, Luna content with walking the suspended bridges and pointing out landmarks on the city’s horizon, while Prompto had discovered a love of photography and thus made it his mission to document their best finds around Tenebrae.

It was a painful reminder that Luna was now at risk, all because of him. Because he was _Etro,_ and because the Oracle had made one fatal mistake.

“I remember this,” Ravus said evenly, for in this secluded area of the Citadel, one need not speak in more than a whisper to be heard. At once, Prompto’s attention was drawn from the fountain, and he rose from a crouch, having been sufficiently mesmerized by the ripples which fanned out from the knees of the statue. There was a thoughtful furrow to Ravus’ brow. “I was with you in… a place like this.”

Prompto had noticed gaps in his own memory of the time preceding the crystal, as had Ardyn. After their departure from Tenebrae, he and Ardyn soon learned that for Lindzei—General Ravus, now—those holes were caverns. It was a blessing in many ways, Prompto knew, that Ravus did not harbor the same hatred for the Astrals as Ardyn so vehemently swore, all for the simple fact he did not remember what was done to them. And oh, when Ardyn got his hands on Ravus, he had taken such _glee_ in embellishing the details.

Lindzei was always the gentler of the two, a practice in opposites. Where Pulse was the disobedient fox, Lindzei was ever the faithful hound, all too pleased to lie on his belly at his precious master’s feet. Still, the truth was soldered in history eons ago: Lindzei had taken just as many mortal lives as Pulse had. It changed nothing, that Prompto knew him to be a kinder being when his decisions were but his own. He’d even told Prompto, once, that he viewed mortals as equals created in Bhunivelze’s image. But a dog was still a dog, and this animal did not question his master, had slaughtered millions at a word.

The old Lindzei was someone prone to become lost in his own thoughts. He was Bhunivelze’s loyal shield, and had never been one to waste breath on needless words or declaration. Prompto had grown companionable with him over the centuries, in those scarce moments when Prompto had been allowed the freedom to do as he wanted—a caveat, that his freedom was limited to within Solheim’s impenetrable walls. Lindzei had traversed the gardens of Solheim at his side many a late afternoon, and that was perhaps the source of Prompto’s bitterness, that Ravus’ presence beside him now, in the present, was at Ardyn’s order rather than a request for companionship.

“You’re probably thinking of Solheim,” Prompto offered, his tone a touch softer than his liking. Despite their shared history, he held no allusions that they were friends—they were hardly on the same side! Ravus went along with Ardyn’s plans readily insofar as they both sought access to Lucis’ crystal. To Ravus, he might as well have been a rusty crowbar, one which would free Bhunivelze from the last of the Astrals’ infernal prisons and reunite the dog with his master at long last.

But damn him, Prompto had always struggled with resisting the urge to care for wounded things. He understood Ravus’ desire to be once more at Bhunivelze’s side, because it was a comfort to him, the only truth that still made sense when he’d emerged in this strange, changed world. Prompto understood it, but he didn’t have to like it.

Ravus’ brow furrowed even further, his expression now pained, the fractures in his memory no doubt leaving his mind incredibly unstable.

Ever so slowly, Prompto stepped in close and rested a palm on the lapel of Ravus’ uniform, just above the spot where the man’s heart should be, now that Ravus was just as mortal as he. He drew in a steadying breath, and continued, “The forests were much wilder in the central valley of Solheim, but I had all the time in the world to tame it.” And there, that telltale bitterness crept back in again, but Prompto pushed it aside. “I think it took literal decades to convince you to help me tend the gardens there. You _hated_ the sunflowers nearest the palace. They never flowered fast enough to your liking.”

His words had the desired effect, it would seem; Ravus’ face smoothed out, a slight downturn to his lips as a memory slotted back into place—usually it was only sensations, he had told Prompto. The wind from atop the mountains, or the sucking pull of his boots as he crossed the bog waters of the southern swamps.

Ravus lifted one arm to Prompto’s hair—the artificial one, cold and heavied with wirring internals, the latest in Niflheim tech—and with a single clawed finger, he brushed aside a tuft of disheveled bangs.

“Your hair was longer.”

Prompto scoffed. If he could’ve gotten away with it, he would have bared his teeth. _“He_ preferred it that way.”

“Watch yourself, Etro,” came the low warning. Then those claws were moving, snapping around the nearest part of Prompto in reach, that part being his _wrist_ —

And Prompto… he couldn’t restrain himself any longer. “You and Ardyn are _idiots_ if you think waking Bhunivelze will return Eos to how it was, “ he hissed. Ravus’ grip was tightening incrementally so, and he couldn’t move away, much as he fought against it. “Newsflash, buddy, we were destroying it! You don’t have to do this! Bhunivelze can’t order you to hurt people again so long as he remains inside that crystal. What is it gonna take to make you—look, Ardyn’s _been_ lying to you. It wasn’t the Astrals that took your friggin’ arm!”

There was utter silence for but a moment, save the breeze which rustled the leaves amongst the surrounding greenery, then Ravus tilted his head. He appeared thoughtful. “I was aware that he was lying. Rest assured, I am by no means bound to his command. There are… pieces of the puzzle that I am content to rediscover on my own time.” Finally, he released the claws that held fast to Prompto’s wrist. They flexed, testing, perilously close to Prompto’s throat. “You presume me to be naïve, but I have seen enough of this new world to know it _will not_ last, not without guidance.”

Prompto opened his mouth to object, to say—anything. But all that came out was a halted breath.

“They siege war for just a taste of the power of gods.” Ravus turned away. His sneer was hooked and cruel, though fleeting. “Ardyn had hoped forcing you into that party would make you see some sense. Did you not find the lot of them abhorrent, Etro?”

His face was hot, and tears were surely a heartbeat from falling. Still, Prompto couldn’t just give up on them. There was _good_ in them, he’d seen it for himself. “They can be redeemed,” he croaked, uncaring of the vulnerability which bled from his cracking voice. “Before the Oracle fell with Tenebrae… she convinced King Regis to unite their nations. They would have combined their armies, occupied Niflheim until the Empire surrendered. They would have won the war.”

If Ardyn hadn’t forced the Emperor’s hand, the Oracle would still be alive. As it stood, Lucis was now cornered into negotiations. Eos would never know peace so long as the Imperial flag remained raised.

Ravus had stalked further down the path, and so it was impossible to see the tells of the man’s face, the emotion there. When next he spoke, there was something mournful to his cadence, and Prompto was reminded of the fair and just Lindzei that he once befriended in Solheim.

“I remember the sunflowers,” Ravus began, and as he raised his chin up toward the garden’s high ceiling, his silvery hair curled into the stiff collar of his military jacket. “I remember… you, smiling at him.” Prompto froze. His eyes were burning, but not yet wet. “His Majesty was drawing you close beneath the low-hanging branches of a willow tree… and I can almost see them,” a pause, an aborted breath, “your inseparable hands.”

Prompto wanted to say _stop, don’t make me listen to this, haven’t you hurt me enough?_ but his throat felt suddenly as though it were no longer his own, his voice belonging to another. His clothing was far too tight, and oh, he was crying now, wasn’t he?

“It was soon dusk, and the air tasted like wet clay and damp, moistened dirt, but sweeter somehow, more profane. And I remember thinking… I would have raised my sword to any creature that dare enter that hidden place, were it even so harmless a thing as a bird come to perch in the shifting boughs. I thought… you conceived another child, in that moment. Of course the very soil of the earth was exuberant, trilling for all the palace to know that you had.“ 

Fisting his hand roughly in the cuff of one sleeve, Prompto rubbed, furious now, at the tears slickening his cheeks. How dare Ravus pity him now? How _dare_ he imply that his imperfect memories were the only truth, that Bhunivelze had done no wrong and treated Prompto so disgustingly sweet. It was useless poetry, the same that Lucis published in droves _: come, pity poor Etro, she was left all alone._ “Remember all the specifics that you’d like,” he spat. “You were the one who stood guard while he _raped_ me.”

Ravus still did not turn; instead he only shook his head. “You did grow to hate him. That doesn’t mean it was rape when you still loved him. As for that day, don’t _you_ remember? How you slipped your handmaiden during the night, hardly managing to cross the far fields edging Solheim’s outskirts before succumbing swiftly to labor. I… remember finding you there. I was the first. There was so much blood in the crumpled wheat where you lay, and I was no healer, and so I…,” another pause, this one longer than the last, “was afraid. You purposefully gave birth outside the walls built to protect you, and I could not fathom _why._ Even your child smelled your distress, and it went rampant. It attacked a passing caravan of mortals and they did not think to hesitate before drawing their weapons. They murdered your newborn as you lay dying.”

“I don’t…,” Prompto’s breath stuttered in his chest, because of course he remembered. Those images came in fits and slashes of light behind his eyes, though he himself had been insensate and delirious, having no further control of his body than to list his head into Lindzei’s chest as the other god had cradled him and hushed him. The stars had been hidden behind storm clouds, and it was so terribly dark. The humans fought with spears and torches; his child began screaming and never stopped, until Prompto went unconscious from the blood loss for an undeterminable amount of time, and when next he’d opened his eyes, feverish, the field was silent.

“You don’t recall how the legends went in the villages?” Ravus laughed, and though he’d been somber until that point, the sound was distinctly mean. “To their children and their children’s children and so on and so forth, she was forever known as Deathclaw.”

Prompto hadn’t named her. She lived so briefly, he could not have continued on with that pain of knowing. And then there wasn’t the time to lament what could have been, for Bhunivelze arrived shortly after Prompto had felt her die. The god king stood in that filthy mortal field in full battle armor, titanium that swallowed the darkness itself for it was impossibly blacker than the night, and had waved a distracted hand before falling to the mud at Prompto’s side. Every mortal in Bhunivelze’s radius had at once gone up in flame and burned alive.

“Gentiana—” Prompto started, then stopped.

She was his fal’Cie, born unexpectedly from a star one lonely evening when his confinement in Solheim had first begun and he’d ached to see Lady Mwynn again, her loss still a fresh, open wound upon his heart. Pulse and Lindzei had created several fal’Cie of their own during the conflict which ended in Mwynn’s death and Bhunivelze’s ascension to the god throne. He remembered thinking them terrible beasts when he fought against them, though in time those same fal’Cie would come to be revered by the mortals and named the Hexatheon of the Astrals.

When he knew her, Gentiana was his friend and confidant, first. His attendant and handmaiden, second. It was his disobedience which led to his child’s death at the hands of mortals, but Bhunivelze had not seen it that way. He would have ripped Gentiana in half had Prompto not begged for her life.

Bhunivelze took her eyes in the end. And Prompto, sick with grief and guilt, had nearly been broken.

“Gentiana was careless,” Ravus declared, “Or perhaps too caring—she purposefully ensured you would have the best chances when you ran. You cannot argue His Majesty was unfair, given the circumstances and his temper in all matters that concerned you. Had she been any other being whom his beloved Etro did not cherish, His Majesty would have eaten her alive. Would a mortal lord have been so lenient? They, who would rush to hang their own brothers for stealing bread when they are but innocents, guilty true, but only of starvation and hunger.”

When Prompto provided no further answer, Ravus turned on his heel. His eyes were hard, and at his side, his mechanical fingers were tightening and then opening rapidly, repeatedly.

“We must correct the wrongs of this realm, Etro,” Ravus said with finality. And at that, he stalked in the direction which led out from the gardens.

Prompto was at a loss to do anything more than follow him. His arms were once more wrapped around himself, and he had to bite his tongue to keep from arguing further. He had thought… he didn’t know what he had thought. The incident had happened over three thousand years ago. He hadn’t imagined it affected Ravus so deeply, but then, Prompto had managed to block it out so thoroughly for it to almost not have happened.

It was something only time would tell, however: whether or not the holes in Ravus’ memories would prove volatile after all.


	2. Chapter 2

_[…] but the spoiled Bhunivelze, tasked with nurturing the humanity which His mother created, had stood back and watched the planet rot. Humans, who had never known death, began to starve. With their last agonized breath, the first among them to succumb to famine had somehow awoken Mwynn from her deep rest. She granted this human immortality and asked that they act as her shepherd, guiding the souls of the dying into the unseen realm so that humanity may know eternal peace with her. And so became Etro, with whom humans associated life after death._

_To appease His mother, Bhunivelze gifted godhood upon his two most faithful worshippers. These new gods, Hallowed Pulse and Fell Lindzei, would watch over humanity in His place. Mwynn returned to her rest in the unseen realm; however, Bhunivelze was left furious with her intervention. He commanded His servants to cull the humans which she cherished above all else. That was, until Etro appeared before Bhunivelze and begged for the slaughter to end. And, fervent, the cruel god prince agreed, for He had fallen desperately in love (Vol. XXVII, page 7, cont.)_

“Don’t stop there,” Luna whined, uncaring of the sleepy sort of slur she’d picked up as the hour grew late. Having tucked her face so close to Prompto while he read, every word that she spoke was embellished by a ticklish puff of breath against his throat. “Please, will you read the next part again? Just one more time, then I promise I’ll go to sleep… she’s about to fall in love back.”

* * *

A messenger eventually arrived to inform Ravus that Ardyn Izunia requested his presence in the upper atrium. A quiet spell had settled over them as they strayed deeper into the Citadel, and so Prompto was slow to lift his unfocused gaze from the ground. Already, Ravus was dismissing the messenger with a curt gesture of his hand and a sigh. Whatever the general’s reaction to the news may have been, it was hidden behind an expression of carefully measured distance.

“It would seem that the chancellor has been so convincing of Niflheim’s good faith,” Ravus then said, “that King Regis will be granting the Imperial envoy an audience with Lucis’ crystal.”

These are the first words Ravus spoke aloud since their ill-fated conversation just a handful of hours before, and the tension choking the air between them had grown nearly suffocating, now impossible to ignore. Ardyn’s plan was proceeding much quicker than either he or Prompto could have imagined. 

A faint trembling began in Prompto’s fingertips and raced up the bone. He clamped both hands into tight fists, swept them behind his back. It went unsaid that his presence was expected for this audience. He’d thought he had more time. He’d been so incredibly stupid, daring to believe there was still a chance, somehow, for King Regis to deny the Empire and refuse them the concessions which the Emperor desired. Emperor Aldercapt wanted to re-negotiate land and trade routes, the better to castrate Lucis economically, but this served as only a distraction for the true goal behind the chancellor’s maneuvering. In all likelihood, Ardyn had lied through his teeth to ensure the armistice passed the hands of the Lucian council.

The Lucians were left unaware of just what they’d allowed to proceed. But Prompto knew otherwise, and that knowledge sickened him.

Since Tenebrae—since the very moment Niflheim’s magitek soldiers had breached the limits of the Oracle’s holy city, and the screams of her people had risen like gunsmoke to the castle windows where Prompto, frustrated for all that he was mortal, had done little more than cower and listen—a part of him was changed. Had he given up then? Or had he waited until the very end, when he was in Lady Fleuret’s atrium, held down by MTs and forced to watch as the one woman he’d come to see as a mother placed herself between Ardyn and Tenebrae’s brilliant white crystal, and was impaled by the chancellor’s sword for her refusal to kneel.

Perhaps the part of Prompto that died with Tenebrae was his will after all. He was useless, utterly incapable of stopping what was coming. He’d been foolish to hope anyone could do what the Oracle had failed to. And yet, there was another part of Prompto which held on. It was the selfish part of him, the part that ached to protect Lunafreya from her mother’s fate.

As Tenebrae fell around him, it had occurred to him to attempt killing himself. He would’ve dashed for the highest balcony had Ardyn’s magitek soldiers not stormed the castle and captured him in time.

Remembering this, Prompto shivered. The metal hands of the MTs had been icy, burned where they touched him. As they carried him to the atrium which housed Tenebrae’s crystal, one of the soldiers moved its claws to his windpipe and applied enough force, _just_ so, that black spots muddled his vision. A prior Oracle had the ceiling high above the crystal converted into geometric glasswork more suiting of a greenhouse, and so late afternoon sunlight glittered prettily in the blood which pooled slowly from beneath Lady Fleuret’s body.

It was a picture painted in startling clarity in his mind: how Ardyn had sniffed, reclaimed his weapon from the Oracle’s breast, and stepped easily over the fresh corpse blocking the gangway. Luna had managed to evade the soldiers for a while longer, something which Prompto could thank the stars for every night, for she was not dragged in until after her mother was already dead. Still, the scream she let loose when she saw the body—that, Prompto would never forget.

The commotion of Luna’s appearance gave even Ardyn pause, as just then, the chancellor was readying to touch the crystal and recite the old songs which would shatter the Astrals’ ancient ward. It… amused Ardyn, because of course it would. In the time before the Astrals betrayed the old gods, Bahamut chose the first Oracle and blessed her human bloodline. Pulse had been so quick to voice his disgust to Bhunivelze, but that said nothing of what Ardyn must think of the Oracle now, after his long imprisonment.

And then there’d appeared that glint of positive mischief in Ardyn’s eyes, his gaze dancing between Luna and Prompto as they struggled to reach out for one another.

If the old stories were to be believed, Etro was at her most effective when she was begging on her knees. Prompto saw it as an ultimatum. Run, and Luna would die at Ardyn’s hands. But _stay…_ and at the cost of just one inconsequential ten-year-old child, the last thing in Eos which Prompto held dear… he would give himself over to Ardyn willingly.

In the end, it was his _choice_ to obey. His desire to keep Luna that made him plead for her life to be spared. No other hand but Prompto’s could dissolve the last remaining ward on the crystal in Lucis because the power that created it had been his own.

He alone would free Bhunivelze.

By the telltale narrowing of Ravus’ eyes, it was clear that the general was awaiting a response. Prompto could think of nothing to say, because what would it have truly mattered anyway? Ravus was using Prompto the same as Ardyn was. The naked concern which Ravus felt for him made no difference; worse, it was sandpaper against Prompto’s skin, rubbing him raw.

_You can’t force me to release Bhunivelze back into this world and at the same time be allowed to regret how you’ve hurt me._

Prompto knew when he was being pitied. _Naïve dog,_ he wanted to snarl. Instead he swallowed once, hard, and jerked his head in an approximation of a nod.

This, at least, forced Ravus to finally relent. An elevator was called, and Prompto boarded ahead of Ravus when the other man indicated for him to do so. And at once, they began the ascent. All the while, Prompto found his eyes wandering, flickering surreptiously over to the rapier sheathed at Ravus’ side.

But no—he reminded himself again that he was doing this for Luna. There was little chance she had not been brought into the building already; Ardyn would want her close. The better to keep an eye on his own insurance that Prompto would comply.

 _I’m so sorry, Luna,_ he found himself thinking moments before the elevator doors slid open.

Here, the outside hall was decorated in much the same way as the rest of the Citadel, though the spaces between the columns were draped in rich, royal blue tapestries which hung down to the carpeted floor. At the far end, Prompto could just make out the shapes of several Kingsglaive behind which climbed a wide staircase. A set of black doors loomed beyond the top step. This, Prompto already knew, was the entrance to the king’s atrium. 

Ravus exited the elevator first, meanwhile Prompto, uneasy, was a moment delayed in following. However, he did not get far before a sudden and powerful plummeting sensation sent his stomach seizing into knots. The shock of the pain alone had him reeling, one hand jumping up to muffle the keen which tore abruptly from his mouth. Before Prompto realized what was happening, his knees had buckled, and Ravus was pivoting, fast, to grab him. Then the carpet was rushing up to meet him, and—

He fell face-first into a robed chest. Almost instantly, two arms encircled him. The press of them against his sides and back was unbearably gentle. But… who…?

“Etro,” whispered a low, toneless voice, where cold lips had pressed to the crown of his head.

Blinking rapidly against a wave of vertigo, Prompto only now noticed that he was inhaling air in great, shaky gulps. Thankfully, the dizziness was short-lived, and his breathing began to slow. He was no longer in the hallway, that much he knew for certain. His vision had bled for a single instant, and past the nausea eating a hole inside his stomach, he’d felt his body being spirited somewhere else entirely.

As it was, Prompto nearly did not hear his rescuer’s voice as they spoke. But… he did not need to. A long-forgotten scent was teasing at his nose. It grazed the very edge of his senses, and he found himself thinking of peaches, ripe and round, their juice dripping from the first cut like spun honey down his wrists.

Prompto would have known it anywhere.

“Gentiana,” he rasped, burying his face in her sweet-smelling robes as deep as he dared. _Gods,_ but Prompto had expected to never see her again.

How long had it truly been? His memories of Solheim were like sliding shadows in his mind, a faraway place he would never stop running from, lest those memories be allowed to drag him back. Despite this, he could recall even the shape and pallor of her face, her steadfast surety, her calm. And thinking of that time now, of how tightly she held him through every difficult birth and prolonged labor, how she would stroke his hair and so tenderly pet his neck… surely, Prompto thought, after everything that had happened, there was very little left of his heart save a dull bruise.

“Forgive me,” Gentiana said then, and when a cool palm came to rest against his cheek, he was coaxed into raising his chin.

Her face was unchanged from his memories: pale and sloped, and haloed in black hair which fell like a curtain over her shoulders and down her back. Prompto’s breath stuck in his throat as his eyes climbed to meet hers, and there he studied her for one stolen moment—her closed eyes, the way the lashes there fanned down upon prominent cheekbones.

It occurred to Prompto that his mouth felt all kinds of weird. His tongue sat numbly behind his teeth, a result of the teleportation, perhaps? “Gentiana…” He tried a second time, and this he said like one might scold a child, every word slowed: “What have you done?”

Luna—they had Luna. In his head, he heard an echo from his last day in Tenebrae. It was Ardyn’s voice, delivering a lilting promise: _Don’t be coy, Etro. Shall I kill the Oracle’s child, too? Be a good boy now. It wouldn’t do to run._

A cursory glance around the room told him he was still in the Citadel. That much he could glean from the fixings of the furniture and, behind them, the four-poster bed pushed against the wall. The stale air, at least, indicated it was not a room used often.

Steeling himself, Prompto planted both his hands against Gentiana’s chest and pushed. Her arms fell from their embrace as if limp, though for her part, as he hefted himself wobbily to his feet, she remained silent and made no such move to rise from her folded knees.

“Pulse has the Oracle,” Prompto all but hissed. Exactly how much did Gentiana know? He’d missed her, gods, he’d missed her enough to _hurt._ But it hurt so much more to think that she’d been watching him all this time and not once intervened. “You have no right to be here. Bahamut’s crystal spat me out six years ago! Where were you _then?”_

He was gesturing wildly, he knew. A thousand conflicting emotions were battering his brain to hell, not just because he was seeing Gentiana for the first time in two thousand friggin’ years, but because of how lost he’d been during those initial months after he’d return, because—for all _two thousand_ of those years gone past, Prompto was here in Lucis, inside the crystal. Trapped with Bhunivelze.

Six years ago, Queen Sylva Via Fleuret dropped all pretenses of a neutral Tenebrae and came to Insomnia seeking the approval of the king, Regis Lucis Caelum, that an alliance between their countries might be made. Lucis, like Niflheim, respected tradition. The Oracle stood as representative to the Astrals, and thusly, the skirmishes for the better part of the war were contained to Lucian and Niff soil. But their countries were built on what they believed to be the power of the old gods; their worship did not extend to the weak and long-dead Astrals.

Her Lady Fleuret, in all her life, had never once seen the crystal of Lucis. It was an old superstition—for an Oracle of the Fleuret line to convene with all three crystals would surely bring the wrath of the Astrals upon all Eos. But that day, the King allowed for Lady Fleuret to enter the atrium alone.

 _“It sang to me,”_ she’d once whispered to Prompto, her voice shivery, warmed by her awe, “ _I live beneath the crystal in Tenebrae, and never before have I heard—when it sang, my ability surged to my fingertips without needing to be called. I didn’t know what it wanted, but when I reached out for it… you were there."_

An Oracle could heal any sickness, any grievous physical wound, and bore witness to visions of future. For years, it had become a sort of puzzle: how _had_ Prompto been pulled from the crystal that day? Lady Fleuret was so sure that it’d been _Prompto’s_ voice, that it’d been her ability which allowed him free.

For Prompto, it was like waking foggily from a dream whose details flit away on hastened wings.

He stopped. Breathed in, breathed out. “Do you know what the humans now say? After the Astrals created the crystals, their bodies disintegrated into dust that spread across the sky. They became the constellations and the stars.” Prompto swallowed. He hadn’t known what to believe, for what had happened to the Astrals in his absence had been left mostly to conjecture it seemed. He’d hinged his hope on a single idea: if Gentiana still lived, she would come to him.

“Be calm, Etro, if not for my sake than for your own,” Gentiana soothed. She tilted her chin up, and it took him a moment to register the aura which she was actively lobbing in his direction. She probably thought it was helping. Once upon a time, it _had_ worked on Prompto, every time. But he was different now, whereas Gentiana hadn’t changed at all. “They will not harm the Oracle so long as she has use as a weapon against you. Please. We have so little time.”

“Then answer the question.”

Head slightly cocked, Gentiana was frowning. Reading her was made much more difficult without the benefit of seeing her eyes, but Prompto was well-versed in her mannerisms. She was troubled; her aura had not worked. “I have felt your pull since you re-emerged in Eos. That day, would you believe that I came to you?”

Seeing as, well, Prompto spent most of that time unconscious or just nearing so, his memory consisted of little more than a soft voice—Lady Fleuret—bidding him to rest, and a softer bed and sheets.

“Do the others know?” He blurted the thought as soon as it leapt inside his head. If Gentiana had survived the planet, then surely, the other Astrals…? Worry sank like a heavy stone inside Prompto’s belly. Ifrit, at least, would sooner kill him than see Bhunivelze set loose. But if that were indeed the case why then, after six years, did Prompto still live?

“I’ll admit that I was… mystified,” she replied, seeming to weigh each word she spoke with utmost care. “I alone had sensed it happen. The crystal remained intact, but suddenly your presence was undeniable, the like of which I had not felt since before the Scourgefall. Ifrit had no inkling, but still I worried for your safety should your emergence have become known. So I met with Sylva as she attended your bedside. By her word, she promised to guard you for as long as her power allowed.”

Lady Fleuret spent her entire life praying to one day meet an Astral face-to-face. How incited she must have been when it finally happened. Still, she’d kept this secret from him, but for what purpose? 

There was that old confusion again, that pain, that biting sense of loss. Prompto was brought back human, and he’d found no purpose in this modern Eos, nothing resembling the second life which Mwynn had given to him. “You left me,” he whispered. “I was scared and so friggin lost, and you…”

When Gentiana smiled, it was a small and fleeting thing. It was also very sad. “I wished dearly to see you free. I believed you to be finally living the life you’d always desired.”

“Yeah?” Prompto ground out. “Well that life died with Tenebrae. It _died_ with the last Oracle.”

So very gentle, Gentiana breathed a quiet hush. All Prompto knew was that, within one instant and the next, she was there standing in front of him, close enough that her breasts pressed against his front through her robes and his rumpled suit, and it was—a comfort. She was comforting him in the way she’d taught herself how to. _It isn’t fair,_ he wanted to yell, scream until he was hoarse. He was being unfair to her, too, attempting to cast any blame on her for what had happened in Tenebrae. The Astrals were almost powerless since the creation of the crystals. She could have done nothing to stop Pulse when the Empire’s army came. She would have only put herself at risk.

When Bhunivelze blinded her, Prompto had been at once beside himself, and hadn’t dared look at Gentiana’s face for days, possibly weeks. Not without immeasurable, incomparable guilt. He was looking at her now though. And in seeing the strength she wielded in her silence, he swore that Bhunivelze would not touch her again.

“Quickly, we are out of time. I came to tell you that there is hope. Bhunivelze is going to awaken, but the Astrals will not allow him to reclaim his throne. All that we have done since the old gods fell was to maintain balance across the realms.” She reached for one of Prompto’s hands, guiding it to rest over her heart, “Should the scales tilt and chaos reign, Bahamut will return.”


End file.
